


The Conversation Hearts Club

by sheepfriend



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AU: Not CCs, Dream works at the dollar store and that's all on that, First Dates, Fluff, I namedrop so many companies in this bad boy and i just hope they dont sue me or something, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Valentine's Day, cute and not stressful at all come chill, slight miscommunication that's cleared up quickly and no one's upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29452959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepfriend/pseuds/sheepfriend
Summary: They roll down the short belt in a chaotic splash of pink and red, a pile of craft supplies and boxes of cheap Valentine’s kitsch pouring over each other in every direction. He knows he isn’t supposed to judge, really, what customers buy, and at this point, nothing really fazes him.He expects to see a middle-aged white lady, probably some mom preparing an activity for her kids, at the end of the belt.To his utter surprise, the customer is a guy around his age who he saw come in a little while ago.Dream never really thought it would be some random customer and his boyfriends who showed him how to enjoy his least favorite holiday, but life never turns out the way you expect, does it?
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Clay | Dream/Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream/Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 181
Collections: Cute works





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrappyRavioli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrappyRavioli/gifts).



> So, a while back, CrappyRavioli and I agreed to make Valentine's day fics for one another and just agreed that we each chose the ship we wanted and that we had to write date fics. I've never written Dreamnotkarlnap before, but I give Ravioli what they want and I had a lot of fun with this. I wanted to make this all a oneshot, but I wanted even more to get it up on Valentine's day and since I'm not done with it and I have work for school that I need to do tonight, I decided to turn it into two chapters. I'm having a lot of fun writing it though, so I anticipate that the second chapter will go up late tomorrow night and I hope nobody's too put-out about it. 
> 
> I don't know what came over me, but this is definitely the result of me working full time at the grocery store... I'm super proud of it, though, and I hope it makes you smile!

It's only 2:37, the clock on his phone says, and Dream sighs. He's at work again, like it seems he always is, but it's been a particularly slow day at the store today. He's done most of the busy work he can already, and he's stuck working front end this afternoon while his coworker, a girl who isn't much for conversation, changes the sale price stickers on the Valentine's day candy. 

There are a couple of customers drifting through the aisles right now, but everyone is silent except for a pair of friends whose conversation is loud enough to be heard over the too-quiet pop music his manager puts on every day. He's not really keen to pay attention to what they're saying, though, so he drowns it out and busies himself with picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of his undershirt and thinking about whether he's okay with being here.

Sure, work sucks. It's boring, long days of tasks that don't really mean anything, but it's money, and he honestly still can't imagine himself going to college or tying himself down at a boring office job. He knows it's not really true, but something about getting a "real job" that he doesn't like feels more permanent than working full time at the Dollar Tree by his mom's house. Plus, his mom is nice about it. He could be unlucky enough to be nagged constantly, but she seems to know that college— for what he tried of it— didn't go well for him and that he's still figuring things out. He just sincerely hopes that he can figure something out sooner rather than later, for his own sake. Working at a usually slow Dollar Tree isn't the most rewarding endeavor for his overactive brain.

It’s a nicer Dollar Tree, he thinks. Nicer than the Dollar General by his brother’s apartment, at least. It's clean and well-lit, and not many people come in just to jumble the displays too often. Maybe it's because his manager has a stick up his ass, but Dream likes to keep busy, so it's not a huge problem when he asks for somebody to mop the aisles when they're not even dirty; Dream usually offers a hand. 

At long last, he's given something to busy his hands, and he sees the items before he sees the customer. 

They roll down the short belt in a chaotic splash of pink and red, a pile of craft supplies and boxes of cheap Valentine’s kitsch pouring over each other in every direction. He knows he isn’t supposed to judge, really, what customers buy, and at this point, nothing really fazes him. This, however, plucks just the right string within him to get him looking.

He expects to see a middle-aged white lady, probably some mom preparing an activity for her kids, at the end of the belt. 

To his utter surprise, the customer is a guy around his age who he saw come in a little while ago.

The shock and intrigue don’t show on his face— he’s schooled his expressions for the utmost degree of customer service— but the words are hard to keep in his own mouth. The end result is a warm smile paired with, "Wow, you uh, like Valentine's day, huh?" Dream mentally smacks himself, because that could probably be very offensive and now he's praying this guy isn't a "Can I speak to your manager" kind of fellow. 

Fortunately, he just giggles- and it's such a bubbly giggle, wow- and says, "Yeah, I guess you could say that." He pauses to take a close look at Dream, which leaves him feeling like a bug under a microscope in his unflattering green polo shirt. "What, you not a big fan?" the customer asks.

"I guess you could say that. It’s just an excuse for Brach’s to sell bagfuls of those crappy little Conversation Hearts. Why do they even exist? They’re like, the worst candy. Worse than candy corn.” He figures he might as well just have this conversation. If he loses his job somehow, he can find another one. Or maybe it will spur him to find something even better, who knows. Opportunity is strange like that.

The items slide seamlessly through his hands as they pass over the scanner. The _beep_ of every purchase ringing in his ears calms his nerves. 

The customer smiles warmly again, like he's actually enjoying their conversation. "They're fun. They taste bad but they're funny. And my take on the matter is that any holiday is what you make of it, even if it's just corporate when you're looking at what people usually do."

"Mhmm, I can see that." He's still scanning items. Red paper, stencils, multiple packs of Valentine's-related stickers, glue sticks, four tubes of glitter, a crinkly bag of fake red feathers, pipe cleaners, paper doilies, and even some boxes of kids' valentines fly through his hands and over the scanner. Damn, he's curious what all this is for. 

No reason not to ask. "What's all this for, anyways?"

"Oh! My, uh, my roommates and I have a little Valentine card making thing every year, where we make silly ones for all our friends and stuff. It's a lot of fun." There's hesitation in his voice, but Dream can't place its origin, so he assumes it's the 'grown man admitting to making pink heart shaped crafts' factor, not that he's judging. Valentine's day is stupid, he stands by that, but to each their own.

When he's done ringing it all up, he drops the standard, "Cash or card?"

"Card," the guy mutters, digging through his wallet to pull it out.

Dream goes silent and takes the minute the guy is occupied with the instructions on the pin pad to actually sneak a look at him. He's shorter than Dream, with fluffy brown hair that nearly hangs into his eyes. As he looks down at the card scanner, his surprisingly long eyelashes stand out against his cheeks. 

Admittedly, he's cute. Dream definitely isn't above silently checking out a customer every once in a while and it's not like he's still stuck in his middle school phase of denying his interest in men. It's not like he's going to come onto Valentine's card guy, anyway, so no harm, no foul.

He does check to see if there's a next customer in line, but the answer remains no.

The payment device pings happily and the receipt begins to print at Dream's side. Mindlessly, he grabs it and hands it to the weird but cute customer.

"Thanks," he says back and actually looks Dream in the eye. His eyes are blue, like, super, super blue, and Dream usually isn't a blue eyes guy, but this man just does it so well, he thinks. The eye contact spawns a shy smile on the guy's face and Dream feels incredibly stupid being pulled in so much.

He has to collect himself and remember to do his job. He spins the bag rack for the customer to take his four bags of glitter and paper and garland and stickers and glue.

"Thank you for shopping at Dollar Tree. Hope you enjoy your craft party," Dream chuckles nervously.

"I will!" The guy laughs through his sunny demeanor. "Have a good day, too."

Just like that, he's taken his bags and walked away. There still isn’t anyone else in line, so he watches the man walk out of the sliding doors and into the slushy February chill.

When he's done with his shift and hurrying through the grey wind to his car, Valentine's guy still lingers in his mind, with his all too optimistic take on what is maybe the worst American holiday and his droopy blue eyes. _I didn't even get his name,_ he thinks forlornly, before remembering that that's normal. 

It's the strange, awful wonder of customer service, he supposes.

x

Dream isn't on the register right now. It's 10:30 and he's restocking the Head & Shoulders, then he'll probably move on to Oreos, because they've got a big box of them in the back, too. It's not riveting stuff, but he's happy to keep his hands busy.

He's completely occupied with his task and wondering what he's going to make for dinner tonight, since it's his turn, when a voice calls, "Oh, hey, Dream, right?" He doesn't recognize the voice but they know his name, which is fucking startling. 

Quickly, he looks over his shoulder to see who almost made him drop three bottles of 2-in-1 green apple dandruff shampoo and conditioner on the ground. 

It’s the guy from last week, Valentine’s card guy, with the sleepy blue eyes that he thinks about sometimes when he goes by the seasonal section that’s still stocked with heart-shaped everything. Dream’s keeping that knowledge to himself.

“Oh, hello. Is there something I can help you with?” Dream asks, trying to be a better employee today than he was the first time he met this guy.

“Nope! Or, well, kinda, if you count talking to me for a second a work favor.”

Dream does and doesn’t, but he’s not going to say anything on the topic either way. Instead, he nods and smiles, shoots off an, “Of course,” and takes a look at the customer again. He’s wearing surprisingly clean Converse, given the salt all over the sidewalks and parking lot, jeans, and an obnoxious cutesy green hoodie with a big zippered pocket on the front and frog flippers dangling off the ends of the sleeves. 

Okay, so, he’s not putting out a straight vibe. Good to know.

“So, I don’t even know if you remember, but last time I was here, I talked to you about the cards I make for people I know for Valentine’s, right?” Dream nods. Not only does he remember, but it sticks out in his mind in a way that few other purchases he’s rung up do. “Well, I was telling my boyfriend about it, like I just mentioned that the guy who rung me up was really shocked about it and, I don’t know, we just kind of joked about making one for you to uh, spread the cheer around.” He closes his mouth for a minute and he is looking everywhere but into Dream’s eyes. “God, I sound so creepy. Sorry.”

Dream is honestly surprised. Since it sounds like this guy is taken, it doesn’t seem like a come-on, and Dream still figures he’s probably the creepy one out of the two of them, thinking every so often and hoping that something like what is literally playing out before him would happen. Something like it, but maybe not this. He’s a little disappointed to hear he has a boyfriend, but that’s just the way life goes, isn’t it? Everything’s a hair’s chance from going perfectly, but all those missed chances shake you around and drop you somewhere completely different from where you expected to be.

“It’s okay,” Dream reassures the nervous guy in front of him. “You didn’t, uh, know I’d be working today, though, right?”

“Oh, no! It was just a chance that you were here. I had to get candy for a work party and for something we’re baking, so I figured, you know, I’d bring it with me. I really didn’t expect to have any luck delivering the card. Right! The card!” As an afterthought, he reaches into the pouch on his frog hoodie and digs out a folded pink piece of paper.

With a slightly shaking hand, he holds it out to Dream. He takes it, feeling the hand-cut edge of the heart shaped paper. “Did you, uh, want me to look at it?”

“Um…” He thinks on it with a furrowed brow, like it’s actually a big decision, which is stupidly endearing. “How about you wait until later. I think I might die if it’s really awkward and I’m still here.”

A sensible giggle bursts from Dream’s chest. “Alright, I get that.” His curiosity bubbles up from his chest and makes him ask, “Could I get your name, at least? It’s just, kind of weird, thinking of you as Valentine’s card guy.”

The guy blushes, actually straight-up goes red under the very white lights of the store, from embarrassment. “Oh my god! I never told you, I’m Karl.” 

“Nice to properly meet you, Karl.” Dream does his best to turn on his charm— for better or worse, for better or worse, his conscience chants— when he says it. Today isn’t a polo shirt day, he’s wearing the Dollar Tree tee shirt with a denim jacket over it and he thinks he might look better than he does sometimes due to it.

Karl smiles back at him, and there’s a moment of really wide, awkwardly-shaped tension that floats in the air, like a misshapen off-brand Lego block in the toy aisle.

No, he can’t explain that assessment of the situation, but he spends too much time here and socially awkward situations feel like an extra big yellow Lego, handed back like an inconsequential mistake. 

Karl is the one to break the silence. “I- I hope you like the Valentine. And if not, that’s cool too. I just wanted to show you some of the fun of it.” He lifts a green Dollar Tree shopping basket now, laden with Valentine’s candy, and says, “I guess I ought to go check out now.” 

On the top of the basket are two bags of Brach’s Conversation Hearts. 

Dream almost just stands there as Karl turns to go see the older lady on the register right now, dumbfounded and feeling fuzzy inside, but the sight of the candy makes him do dumb, impulsive things.

He reaches out and grabs Karl’s wrist, the one not attached to the basket-holding hand. “Karl, wait.” His voice isn’t too loud, but it’s urgent.

When he turns back around to look at Dream, they’re actually in each other’s space for the first time. Which is maybe not the most customer-service-professional thing Dream’s ever done, but he’s not thinking about that right now.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you have those candy hearts in your basket? You admitted they taste bad.”

Karl’s look of confusion blooms into a charming smile. “Yeah, but they’re fun. Just read the card. I’ll- Hopefully, I’ll see you around.”

Dream wasn’t holding his wrist tightly, so he slips away with a bubbly wave, and Dream is left there, brain melting out of his dumb, dumb ears, just watching Karl turn to a different aisle and disappear once more. 

On his break at noon, Dream shakily opens the card that’s been tucked away in the back pocket of his jeans. It’s heart shaped cutout of pink construction paper— the kind they have on the third shelf up in aisle 8— with an actually well done border of red glitter around the edges. In the middle, in silver glitter pen, it says, 

“To: Dream Dollar Tree

If Valentines are bad, then why did buying all the stuff for these cards from you make my day?

From: Karl”

It’s… stupid. It’s actually just as stupid as he expected. 

So if it’s so stupid, why is he blushing?

When Dream leaves work that day, Karl has taken even stronger root in his mind than he had in the past two weeks, and Dream secretly hopes he comes back into the store soon. It’s a little messed up because he’s pretty sure Karl isn’t on the dating market, but it’s a pipe dream anyway, and there’s no harm in dreaming.

xo


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream gets invited on a date that doesn't go at all how he was expecting. 
> 
> He supposes the best things in life really never do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhhhh, this took way longer for me to finish than I wanted it to because I worked all week and every time I sat down to write it at night I fell asleep. <3 ilu too hypersomnia uwu
> 
> But uh sorry if the conversations aren't affectionate enough I am a woman of sarcasm first and all else second. Love is and can be ruthlessly teasing someone bc you don't know how else to talk to a new person. idk. I still think it's really sweet and I hope you enjoy it :)

The sky is deceptively blue the day he meets Sapnap.

It’s one of those winter days when you look out your window and think it might be a balmy thirty-five degrees because of the sun shining over everything and making it glow, but when you open the front door to go to work, it’s actually more bitterly cold than the last four cloudy days. 

...Which is why Dream is wearing his favorite hoodie over his work shirt today, but he’s still cold at his place on the register. Every time a customer comes through the front door or leaves, it slides all the way open and lets in a blast of air so icy it burns his lungs. At least it’s a pretty day when the cold isn’t seeping in, he thinks. 

The displays of Valentine’s day candy and cards are more picked over than they were last week, but there’s still plenty for last minute customers before it all goes on discount in four days. 

He hasn’t seen Karl again since he got the Valentine, and he does think about it a little bit every day— mostly when he looks at the seasonal displays at work or when he catches a glimpse of the card burning a hole into the surface of the desk in his bedroom. It’s been five days, and he’s doing his best to be cool about it, but he can’t help but start to settle into a familiar disappointment, as though there was any chance in the first place. 

It’s late afternoon and his shift is almost over when his sleepy mind is brought back to the situation against his will.

A customer came into the store a while ago, wearing a heavy black canvas work coat and letting the horrible temperature of the outside inside. Now, he’s walking up to the register with just a couple things in his hands. He places them on the belt: coincidentally pink paper baking cups, extra strength hand lotion, and paper towels. Dream thinks absolutely nothing of it, it’s all normal stuff. It’s nothing like what Karl dumped onto the conveyor a couple weeks ago.

“Hi, did you find everything okay?” Dream asks on autopilot.

The customer, who he’s barely paying attention to, steps closer down the line and doesn’t reply right away. At the lack of a usual response, Dream makes eye contact with him. Very direct eye contact, because he’s squinting at Dream with a look of intense concentration. Needless to say, it’s startling. More mildly, he asks, “Can I help you with something?”

“ _You’re_ Dream!” he shouts.

Oh, god, please don’t let this become an altercation. Please don’t let this be anything bad.

“Uh, yes, I am…” He’s really starting to regret wearing his employee name tag so religiously. 

“Damn, okay, I get why Karl wouldn’t stop talking about you.” He puts one of his hands in the pocket of his coat. 

Dream is confused, to say the least. He hasn’t even scanned more than one of the items, because he’s frozen in place. First, he was worried this was going to be a personal grudge thing, then a shoplifting thing, but it’s about _Karl?_

“W-what?”

“Karl- you know him, right? He came in here and bought a fuck ton of Valentine’s stuff, and then came back to give you the card he made?” Dream nods blankly. “Yeah, I helped him make most of them, and we were talking about it all, and he wouldn’t stop saying how cute the cashier was. I told him to just make one for you, it’d be funny. But now that I’m here, I mean, he wasn’t wrong.”

Dream’s reminded of Karl saying he made them with his roommate, so this must be him. Still, the compliment at the end of his rant makes his face heat up. He’s so out of his depth right now, but there’s no other customers in line to save him. 

He spares the customer, Karl’s roommate, a good look. He’s dressed in working clothes, like he does a manual job, complete with scuffed brown steel-toed boots. His hair is dark brown, nearly black, and kind of long, parted in the middle and pushed behind his ear on one side. He isn’t the kind of guy Dream would look twice at without any reason to look in the first place, but given the strange web of connections he’s entangled in, he has a reason to inspect him in the first place. If he’s Karl’s friend, surely he isn’t so intimidating as his clothes would have Dream believe.

“I- You…” Dream is trying to decide on what aspect of this guy and what he’s said that he wants to take a crack at, but his impulses, as always, run faster than his logic. “Karl talked a lot about me?”

The customer laughs, and the new angle of his head displays his scruffy jawline that was previously hidden under the high neck of his coat. “Yeah and I see why. No way you’re single.” 

Maybe he should be more weirded out by this, but Dream can’t find it in himself to really be upset right now. It’s not like he isn’t a little weird about being attracted to strangers from time to time himself. Plus, this guy is close to the stranger who gave him an absolutely charming, silly, handmade Valentine’s card for really no reason at all, so he can’t be all bad, right? 

The two unscanned items lie untouched at the end of the belt while Dream takes another good look at Karl’s probably-roommate. He’s… Not actually bad-looking, for someone who dresses like a guy who’s never once considered himself anything but straight. ( _It’s wrong to make assumptions,_ a voice in his head that he usually doesn’t listen to says.) His jaw is strong, his hair looks soft, and his voice is somehow rough and soft at the same time. 

Something about his bold demeanor lights the fuse to Dream’s own impulsivity.

“Actually, I am.”

The shakes his head and lays his palm on the edge of the counter, next to the card scanner. “Interested in changing that?”

Oh, dear god. Dream almost smiles in absolute bewilderment. This is ridiculous. He’s literally flirting with a customer who scared the shit out of him, who knows the other customer that he may have a little tiny not-serious-by-virtue-of-him-being-a-stranger crush on. He wants to laugh so, so bad, but instead he smiles with heat in his cheeks and says, “Can I get your name first?”

“Sapnap.”

“Sapnap. Never heard that before, but I like it.”

The sound of cart wheels approaching on the whitish tiles prevents Dream from carrying on the conversation in any depth. “Oh, shit, oops,” he mutters before hastily scanning the items, not even bothering to look at them. 

Luckily, Sapnap picks up the slack. Much more quietly than he had been speaking, he says. “It’s nice to meet you, Dream.” He says it as he neatly whips out a bank card and pays. The way he says Dream’s name sends a guilty little shock through his arms and hands. “Wanna give me your number real quick on the receipt?” he whispers as an office-job looking man rolls up a fairly full cart to the line and begins stacking items on the belt.

Dream nods and he feels like a kid, sharing secrets in a secluded hideout or late at a sleepover, even though he’s just at his shitty job on what might actually be the coldest day he’s seen this winter. The receipt prints, _not fast enough, not fast enough,_ and he’s already uncapped the cheap blue Bic pen from the cup by the register before it’s all done. He rips the short receipt from the printer and scribbles out his number and his name with a smiley face next to it. It’s messier than his normal writing but he doesn’t care; it’s legible.

He hands the receipt to Sapnap, who grins proudly as he looks down at it. “Thanks.”

Before he grabs the bag of items, he pulls a surprisingly well cared-for looking pair of knitted mittens out of his coat pocket and tugs them on one at a time. They look really soft and kind of silly on a guy like Sapnap, but in a charming way. 

For the sake of the next customer in line, he leaves quickly. Dream is too stupid and fully of wiggly lime green Jell-O feelings to say even the customary, ‘Have a great day!’

Instead, he takes a deep breath and turns to greet business casual guy and begin ringing him up. He isn’t looking at the door, but he feels the blast of February air when the door slides open to let Sapnap disappear into the shining day.

He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket not too long after, when he’s once again clandestinely doing nothing at the register. He tries to be a model employee, but he pulls his phone out like the high schoolers who work afternoons do all the time to take an overeager look.

Two messages from a new number wait in his notifications.

_Hi dreamie :) It’s sapnap_

_You down to go on a date sunday night?_

As his car heats up in the lot behind Dollar Tree, he sees a grey bag from the store getting caught on the wind from the asphalt and carried up into the blue, blue sky. If it were anything else, it would be a good analogy for the butterflies going up in his stomach.

xox

Dream didn’t realize that Sunday was Valentine’s day— AKA the most high-pressure night for dating of the year— until well after he agreed to Sapnap’s offer. At that point, he felt like it would be rude or stupid or something to cancel just because the concept of it being a Valentine’s date freaked him out. 

He didn’t express this fear, and Sapnap never acknowledged the nature of the day, but he did reassure him it would be casual when he sent him the address of the restaurant. Upon Googling it, Dream found it was some family-owned sports grille, which really wasn’t romantic at all. This both soothed and stoked Dream’s anxiety. 

Sapnap had assured him, _“It’s one of our favorite places,”_ over text, which didn’t make a ton of sense, but at least promised decent food. He supposed it meant that Sapnap and others close to him all approved of the restaurant, generally speaking, but that uncertainty was discomfiting. 

At 6:27 PM on February 14th, Dream parked his car in one of the few empty spots in the outfield of the restaurant’s parking lot. After turning the car off, he nervously checked his phone.

_Sapnap: At a table in the left room, just come in :)_

Dream is impulsive. He knows this. He’s not really brave or adventurous, though. In his head he is though, which leads him sometimes into situations where he has no clue what he’s doing or how he got there. Now is one such moment. 

He’s going on a weird not-explicitly-Valentine’s-day date with a complete stranger who he met at work. 

It’s getting late though, and he isn’t going to flake out. That would be rude. He takes a deep breath and opens the car door. 

Inside, he slips past the already busy host stand with a dismissive wave into the somewhat noisy restaurant. The walls are wood and red, filled with familiar pictures and paraphernalia like would be in any restaurant like this. The light fixtures hang low over the tables and glow yellow, though a few have green or blue glass.

He turns to the left, as the text indicated, and scans the room hastily. His eyes pass over the room twice before he sees Sapnap. He missed him on the first pass because…

He’s not alone. 

In one of the booths on the wall, he’s sitting right next to Karl.

At the same moment that Dream’s feet root to the floor in surprise and confusion, Karl looks around the room and sees him, waving brightly. It gives him no real chance to do anything but slowly walk over.

His face must give him away before he’s even within talking distance, however, because the two look worried and then look at one another nervously.

It feels like crossing hot coals to get to the table, but he arrives, and stands at the end of it dumbly. “Um. Karl, what are you doing here?”

“Huh?” he immediately answers. “I… You didn’t know?”

Oh god, nothing is worse than not knowing something. Panic ensues. “What didn’t I know?”

Placatingly and through a sheer veneer of a smile, Sapnap intervenes. “Dream, why don’t you sit down?”

A million frightening possibilities are racing through his head to explain the situation, but he’s on autopilot, and Dream sits heavily across from them. 

Karl smiles weakly at him and then very seriously, with anxiety in his own voice, asks Sapnap, “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, what is going on?” Dream blurts.

Sapnap widens his eyes and raises his angular brows. “I… don’t know?”

“Well obviously he didn’t think I’d be here!” Karl cries.

“You didn’t?” Sapnap asks, dumbfounded.

“Uh. No. Wouldn’t you have been the one to tell me?”

The restaurant is busy and colorful, complete with those TVs in every corner that play whatever games are currently live on silent that always distract Dream, but the confusion and awkward air that’s pressing on him leads his focus to narrow to the table and the two directly in front of him.

“I… guess so?” Sapnap furrows his eyebrows.

“You definitely should have, nimrod!” Karl lightly bats at Sapnap’s arm. 

“In all fairness, Karl, I thought you already told him we were dating!”

_What?_ “Why am I being left out of this conversation that is very decidedly about me and happening literally right in front of my face?” Dream isn’t angry; maybe he should be, but he’s mostly just so god damn confused. He would very much like to be in the loop.

Sapnap just lets out a pathetic little, “Um,” to which Karl elbows him to make him do the talking. “We apparently didn’t communicate this very well but, I invited you on a date with all of us.” His words sound like those of a child admitting to having stolen candy from the cabinet.

That’s not important, though, because, _“All_ of you?”

“Oh, shit, um,” Karl mutters.

Sapnap looks up.

In perfect unison but different tones, they say, “...George.”

Dream follows Sapnap’s line of sight to a man approaching the table. He stops just a few steps away, close enough Dream could reach out and touch him. He opens his mouth to talk, but Dream beats him to it.

“How men exactly am I on a date with?” He almost shouts, full of incredulity.

Karl shushes him at the same time as the newcomer, probably George, drops his jaw in shock.

“You didn’t _tell_ him?” 

Dream can only silently watch with his mind boggled as a nervous look passes between Karl and Sapnap. 

“I thought I did!” Karl squeaks.

“I thought you did, too!” Sapnap stage whispers, like it’ll keep Dream from hearing. 

George just sighs and turns to Dream. “I’m _so_ sorry. I’m George. I’m, uh, well, I’m both of these idiots’ boyfriend.”

Dream blinks at him, awed and a bit put-out at how neither Sapnap nor Karl managed to tell him such a crucial detail. “I’ve,” he pauses, “begun to parse that out.”

George seems to panic a little bit. “You’re obviously not expected to stay, like I said, I’m so sorry, we know— or we _should_ know,” he mutters sternly— “that this is a lot to drop on someone, even without the context for it being a date.” He sounds so nervous and exhausted.

It occurs to him that all three of them seem really nervous. Scared, even. 

Dream hastily holds his hands up with his palms facing outward. “No, no, it’s okay! I’m not bothered. I just… really, really, and I can not stress this enough: really was not expecting this.”

George’s shoulders unclench and out of the corner of his eye, Dream registers the way Sapnap leans back into the brown pleather bench. 

“That’s… I’m glad,” George supplies.

"Still," Karl says, "I'd get it if you want to go."

There's a barely contained dejection in his voice, but it's not out of pity that Dream decides he'd like to stick around and see where this goes. He liked Karl to begin with, but had figured he was off the market. Learning that he had two boyfriends who both weren't bad looking… It was worth getting to know them, at least.

"Well, I don't want to leave," he reassures Karl.

George is still standing awkwardly at the side of the booth; he obviously would need to sit on Dream's side.

He looks up at the man and smiles as graciously as he can when he says, "Oh, sorry, here. You can sit down."

“Oh,” George breathes. Then, he smiles. It’s a cute smile, radiant and bright, pulling at the man’s face like it just needed to get out. “Thank you.”

Dream stands and lets George slide into the seat next to the window. He's fine with this and all, he's thought about non-monogamy before and decided he quite liked the idea, but he's still in new waters and being able to escape if need be was a comfort.

Sapnap then pipes up. “It doesn’t have to be a date, either. We can all just hang out and it’ll be chill. No pressure, literally, at all.” He still sounds nervous despite his words.

Disbelieving, Dream says, “Just four dudes. Hanging out. Just dudes being bros.” It seems absurd for them all to go back on their offer of a date and go all _no homo_ on him.

Sapnap just nods resolutely.

“...On Valentine’s day.”

As quickly as his confidence grew, Sapnap's expression withers again. “Well, you don’t have to put it like that…"

Before Dream can clarify that he’s really not upset, Karl breaks the tension with an absolutely raucous, shrill laugh. It’s a giggle turned feral, on loads of sugar and caffeine. It’s maybe awful, maybe heavenly. Nervously at first, George begins to laugh and it grows into a formidable sound as well. They’re laughing loudly enough that all the other patrons around them, doing whatever it is that normal people do at a sports grille on Valentine’s day do, spare their table a murderous glance. 

Despite his companions’ laughter, Sapnap still looks embarrassed. Dream can feel the blush— from what, he’s not sure— on his own cheeks when he looks into Sapnap’s dark eyes and says, “It was meant to be funny.” He’s smiling softly when he says so.

Something comes over him, because he reaches out and wraps both of his hands around Sapnap’s folded ones. 

At receiving the touch, he doesn't say a thing, just blushes scalding hot.

Karl giggles leans into Sapnap’s side. “So… Are you saying it’s still a date then, Dream?”

He needs a second to take it all in. He knows his answer, he knows what the words will be before he says them, before he’s even really thought them. Still, he wants a second to take it all in. To roll the idea around on his tongue and shape his decision like building from clay so that it’s resolute when he hands it across the table. 

The lamp above their table has a warm yellow glow that casts amber on his tablemates’ skin. He sees it wrap, golden and happy, like home, over the skin on his and Sapnap’s hands, where they’re clasped on the table. The touch sings of hope and comfort and the magic that you sometimes find in a completely unromantic restaurant when you least expect it. He casts his gaze over Karl and George. Strangers, really. 

Pretty strangers that fate gave him the opportunity to know. 

There was really no choice. Why let it slip through his fingers?

“Yeah. It’s still a date.”

He loves to make people smile, and seeing the relief and excitement cross the three of their faces warms Dream’s winter heart.

After probably too long, a harried waitress gets drinks for George and Dream, since they arrived after she had brought out Sapnap’s and Karl’s. They eventually place their orders and blessedly, Dream doesn’t even feel that awkward. 

“Sorry for being so late,” George tosses in at a lull in the conversation. “People love to buy their flowers last minute and with it being Valentine’s day, well, you can imagine how many people wanted to push closing time later and later.” He sighs heavily and runs a slender hand through his hair. 

“Wait, what?” Dream asks, not really sure how to phrase his question.

“George owns a florist’s,” Karl supplies.

“I don’t-” George starts, but Sapnap interrupts him.

“ _You don’t,_ but he might as well. It’s his mom’s and he doesn’t plan on dropping the business ever.”

“Wow, let me talk about myself, why don’t you?” George rolls his eyes. 

“Why would I when you’re so cute that I just can’t help but talk about you?” Sapnap dramatically squishes his hands into his own cheeks to accentuate the statement.

George looks at Dream and with a sassy deadpan, informs him, “Fine. Well, if you’re curious, Sapnap is a contractor.”

He feels a smile pull at his cheeks at their strange brand of affection, laced with unspoken words and fond teasing. “I was curious, actually. When he came into my work and talked to me, I was really startled by this tough looking dude in full garage clothes or whatever. And then he suddenly started talking about Karl and I was so fucking baffled.”

George smiles fondly while Karl bursts into a softer fit of giggles and Sapnap cries out in protest. “I was on my way to work!”

“I didn’t expect someone _Karl_ knew to be dressed like that!” Dream giggles.

“Like what? Try me, bitch.” Sapnap crosses his arms and scowls, but he doesn’t look serious at all. 

“Like, I don’t know, like…” Dream is sufficiently unable to put his prejudices to words. “Like a republican dad.”

Sapnap chokes on his air and Karl and George laugh again. “At least he’s a hot republican dad, or else you would have called the cops on him for hitting on you,” George says.

“Oh, absolutely,” Dream manages through his embarrassment. 

He’s actually having a lot of fun. He hasn’t joked around with a group in a while, since most of his friends from high school are now busy with college, but now, he’s sitting in a warm booth at a cozily busy restaurant in the February dark, laughing with three considerably attractive dudes who must be at least a little into him. It’s… a one in quite a few million chance, he thinks.

They keep talking. Their food arrives. Just like was promised, it’s casual, but it’s delicious. He’s happy.

The chatting twists in spirals of sharing stories and information, like any first date, and through bouts of dry jokes at which everyone laughs. There’s enough thoughts between the four of them that there are no awkward silences between strangers. Never a dull moment with these three, Dream thinks and it fills his gut with a sense of bubbly hope. He doesn’t like dull moments anyways. 

Karl says he’s the only one still in school, just having started a graduate program in anthropology in the fall, but George does have an economics degree collecting dust. “It just wasn’t very compelling,” he shrugged when Dream asked about it.

When he’s almost done with his dinner, Dream taps his fingers rhythmically on the handle of his butter knife to fidget and asks, “Why exactly did you ask me on a date to what is essentially a family-owned Applebee’s?”

Before Sapnap can answer, Karl protests. “It’s better than Applebee’s!”

“And more sporty,” George adds.

“Well, I did tell you it’s good. And it’s not super expensive, and like, I didn’t want anyone to have to pay too much for a first date that may have gone horribly, since it was completely blind when it came to George.” His candor is a little shocking at times, but admirable. “And I knew it was going to be Valentine’s day, so I didn’t want to make it too high-pressure. Like, an Italian restaurant? That’s way too overkill and we didn’t want to scare you off.”

Dream laughs, but he’s happy for the consideration. “What about like, a sushi place? Where does that fall on the intimidatingly romantic restaurant scale?”

“It’s chill, but too serious for me. Like, George would totally take you on a sushi date but I can’t use chopsticks for shit and I always get nervous about the really modern decorations they sometimes have.” It’s silly, but it’s charming.

“You totally overthought it, but in a good way,” Karl says and presses himself insistently at Sapnap’s side until the other wraps his arm around his shoulder mindlessly.

George, on the other hand, scoffs. “Yeah, right. I’m just about the least romance-minded person ever. I don’t even like it when people know we’re on a date, ‘cause I don’t love having attention drawn to me in public.”

“True, true,” Karl nods.

George is so pretty and fun to have around, Dream can’t imagine why he’d receive anything but positive interactions. “Oh. May I ask why?”

“I mean, you’re cool with it, but I just can’t shake the feeling that something bad could happen if people knew about our relationship.” He’s quiet and somber saying it. “I don’t like to say stuff like that, but you might as well know, right?”

Dream nods. He gets it. “Hey, though, thanks for telling me. I…” He doesn’t want to outright say that he wants to be a part of that relationship, it would just be too forward. But he’s nothing but happy at this table, so like an island from the awful February cold and its slushy roads just outside the window. “I’d like to go on more dates like this anyway, so, it’s good to know,” he settles on. It would be too much to make eye contact with any of them right now, so he just looks down at the middle of the table, where straw wrappers and a couple of napkins are balled up and pulled apart and stacked together. 

George is reticent to respond, probably soaking in the discomfort of sharing something so personal, so Karl smiles. “I guess my Valentine card worked. I totally won you over.” It lightens the mood significantly, but he still says it gently. 

Even though they’re all done eating, they stay longer, talking more softly now than they were before, even after the waitress takes their plates away. The time slips by quickly and it’s nearly closing time when they leave. 

“Oh, shit, I work early tomorrow,” Dream mutters when he notices the time. 

Sapnap groans. “Yeah, me too. Fuck that shit, I hate getting up.”

“Can’t call off again, either, nimrod,” Karl says so softly it’s almost a whisper. By now, on their side of the booth, he and Sapnap are blatantly cuddling. Dream feels a little bad for cutting George off from that, but the oldest seems content with his personal space. 

“Then, I guess we’ve got to go,” George says, angling himself to get up.

They’ve long since paid, honestly, complete with a hefty tip, so Dream stands up and pulls on his coat, which had been tucked between him and George for the past few hours. “I sure hope the staff here doesn’t hate you guys now for staying so long, since it’s one of your favorites,” Dream says apologetically. 

With perhaps unwarranted confidence, Sapnap says, “Oh, don’t worry about it, they don’t hate us already, I don’t see how this would change anything.”

“So, did I show you a good time for Valentine’s day or what?” Karl asks as they leave the entry of the restaurant and walk into the night wind. His hair blows prettily across his forehead as he walks. 

“I guess it pretty much was the best Valentine’s day I’ve had. As an adult, at least.” He supposes the admission is lukewarm, but it also is true. He sincerely wants to see the three again.

“Honk yeah!” Karl offers his hand for a high-five to Sapnap.

While they celebrate their victory, George leans up to Dream’s ear and whispers, “It’s still a stupid holiday, I’m more than happy to shit talk it with you anytime.”

Dream laughs and hopes it covers up the nerves crawling through his body at the feeling of George’s hot breath on his ear. “I don’t know… It’s dumb but in a good way, I think.”

“Suit yourself,” George snarks, but Dream can tell he’s happy. 

The parking lot is small, and Dream points out his car quickly. George, Sapnap, and Karl all follow him towards it to say goodbye. 

It’s actually really sweet. 

“I’m sure Sapnap will text you way too soon so you don’t have to worry about getting ghosted,” George says with his hand wrapped in that of the mentioned man.

“Not if I do it first,” he can’t help but joke back.

“Ooh, Dream likes me,” Sapnap croons.

At the completely true accusation, he just shrugs. “Maybe.”

In that moment, with the world spinning around them, mundane and full of people all driving and living and talking moment by moment, he decides to be bold. Perhaps it’s what the universe wants, to balance out the incredibly drab backdrop of his everyday life. He’s been handed a colorful bouquet of opportunity in the shape of a handmade Valentine, a heavy jac coat, the brush of thin fingers against his own, in the shape of hating candy hearts but buying them anyways.

“I can prove it, if you don’t believe me.” He aims for nonchalance but produces a tone just short of it.

“Hmm, how so?” Sapnap leans in with a smirk. 

Dream takes a step closer and drapes his wrist over Sapnap’s shoulder. He’s aiming to drop a soft kiss on his head, just to be cute or whatever, but the man has other plans. He reaches up on his toes and plants a solid little kiss to Dream’s cheek instead. When he pulls away, his grin is positively triumphant. 

“What the hell! Why do you get to kiss Dream, I met him first!” Karl whines. “Dream, can I get a kiss too?”

All the attention on him suddenly makes him blush and sink into himself sheepishly. “Y-yeah, of course.” Nervously, he leans down and actually gets to kiss Karl’s forehead. The smaller man wraps his arms around Dream’s middle and gives him a surprisingly comforting and tight hug that makes it feel a lot better, a lot less forced. He supposes being in such a new situation is always like that.

Before anyone can make any move towards it, George says, “I’m good without a kiss, Dream. I did just meet you like three hours ago. But you can owe me the first one on the lips later,” he flirts. 

Both Karl _oohs_ like a teasing middle schooler and Sapnap makes a whiny noise at the dibs being called.

“Fine with me,” Dream smiles. A harsh wind hits across the mostly empty parking lot, rolling over the drifts of grey snow at its edges like a nagging parent.

“Anyways, it’s cold as _fuck,_ so I’m gonna get going. Thank you—” his tone drops into something soft and sincere when he says it— “for everything tonight. I wasn’t expecting it, but I had fun.”

Karl answers first. “‘Course, Dream. I’m super happy with how it turned out.”

The others offer their assent, and then Dream is getting into his chilly little car and he’s watching his dates split off through his rearview mirror, with Sapnap and Karl heading to one vehicle and George to another. It isn’t before Sapnap throws his arms around George’s neck and presses a heavy smooch to his lips that they part ways. 

Dream isn’t sure if he was meant to see that, but it makes his face hot and he can’t help but feel an early spring blossom growing in his chest at the possibility of being a part of that soon. Maybe he already is starting to be. 

The stars are covered by clouds tonight, but it doesn’t matter when he ticks on his headlights and pulls out of the parking spot, full of lingering laughter and a warm, hopeful feeling.

xoxo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for your patience. Maybe Valentine's day happened like quite a few days ago now, but pink and red hearts and cute fluff are forever. 
> 
> My tumblr is sheepfriend, come chat or follow me if you're interested!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos make my heart go uwu, so leave some if you enjoyed!


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